Fight or Flight?

Editors’ note: The following essay is a response to recent articles by Neland Nobel and Victor Davis Hanson appearing in The Prickly Pear.

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Prediction: the date 11/3/2020 will become as infamous in history as 9/11/2001. Already, the recent turn of events in the post-11/3/20 world has, predictably, produced a number of deconstructions of Donald J. Trump and his presidency. Included on that list is Piling on Trump in The Prickly Pear (Neland Nobel, 1/8/21) in which every criticism of Trump is absolutely true. Unless, however, you believe that Trump’s loss on 11/3 was legitimate, they are also absolutely irrelevant.

Without going into a point-by-point breakdown, just consider the summary statement in the aforementioned article – “Yes, it would appear that Trump’s personality quirks may have lost us the Presidency.” That is precisely what Democrats want us to believe, that we lost the election and that it was due to a flawed candidate. They want that, nay, they NEED that in order to complete their mission of destroying the Trump brand, legacy and agenda. They do not want to face another Trump. The above quote would only be relevant if one were to totally disregard the massive evidence of election fraud while also ignoring the fact that Trump gained many millions more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

One must consider that the “steal,” as it is called, had to be a sure thing, and so it was. It did not rely on one or two factors. It did not rely, for example, on the Dominion voting system alone. It had to be a sure thing, because if it failed, the perpetrators would be in big trouble in Trump’s second term.

“We need to talk about why we lost,” writes Nobel in conclusion, missing the point again. We did NOT lose. That is the ONLY point and the discussion can never leave that point until the issue has been properly and fairly adjudicated with the results serving to correct the injustice. Until then, it trumps all other issues.

The 1/11/20 edition of The Prickly Pear includes an article by one of the brightest minds in America, Victor Davis Hanson. But bright people don’t always get it right and often do not possess the qualities of those with lesser IQs, notably grit, valor and common sense.

Hanson’s op-ed, Crazy 2020 is Dead! Long Live Crazier 2021! continues from The Prickly Pear, via a link at the bottom of the page to the balance of the piece at America Greatness.

In the continuation portion of the article, Hanson writes;

“As for Trump, there was a road, a far better road for him, not taken. He likely knew by the second week in December, when the electors were chosen, that his flurry of months-long lawsuits, recounts and objections would not lead to either a new national election or the disqualification of votes in four or five key states.”

Hanson goes on to amplify on the above:

“So, Trump erred in pressing is unrealistic claims of winning the election and thereby giving his supporters expectations that the irregularities in the voting would translate into a second Trump term. Again, fairly or not, legally or illegally, rightly or wrongly, that simply was never going to happen. To insist that it would was to mislead his most loyal base. And the disconnect from the finality of November 3, may have contributed to the Republican Senate losses in Georgia, and, for now, has clouded his legacy of real achievement.”

These points need breaking down:

You may note that Hanson never does reveal what he considers to be the “far better road” for Trump to have taken. Continuing with the first paragraph, how on earth could Trump have known in December that his lawsuits to that point would fail? Does Hanson have inside information on corruption and bias within state supreme courts and the federal court system? If not, then his opinion is nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking and worse, it entirely misses the larger point which I will make in a moment. From my thirty years as a trial consultant, I can testify that the cowardice and even corruption we have witnessed from the courts in this case is the least surprising element of this saga.

In the second paragraph, Hanson goes on to refer to the election results as “irregularities.” No, the evidence, even by mid-December, but more so since, points to outright fraud and it was that fraud that formed the basis for the lawsuits in that it alone accounted for more than enough votes to reverse the outcomes. Or, possibly, Hanson views electronic vote switching, running the same ballots through the counting machines multiple times, the processing of more votes than there were registered voters and various other facts as mere “irregularities.”

Then Hanson offers the wildest speculation that Trump’s stance “may have contributed” to the loss of the Georgia Senate races, while offering no logic for that claim. Considerably more compelling could be the argument that drawing the voters’ attentions to the November election’s fraudulent outcome would make for an effective call to action. One could easily understand that motivating Trump supporters who must have been angry after learning of the fraud in their state would be a good strategy. Ask yourself which of those two positions sounds more valid when held to the test of common sense?

Now to the “larger point” mentioned above:

When do you fight and when do you run or surrender? One needs to look no further than the history of this country for a fine example of an answer. George Washington, the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, together with a rag-tag assembly of untrained civilian volunteers had no business believing they could defeat the most powerful military on the planet. If Victor Davis Hanson was advising them, it seems now that he would have said “Forget it boys, you can’t win.” Indeed, there were many in 1776 who said the same thing. Luckily, they were ignored, but they weren’t ignored because the argument made no sense. They were ignored because the argument was irrelevant. The fight needed to be fought because it was the right thing to do.

Indeed, battle history is replete with similar examples, some with results as above, some in defeat, including many where defeat was the outcome known in advance. If need be, ask Texans to explain. The battle of the Alamo serves as a prime example. It was lost before it started, but because it was fought, the war was won. The battle of Midway in WW II is another. The U.S. Navy’s torpedo planes attacked the Japanese fleet without fighter protection. They didn’t stand a chance and were wiped out by the enemy fighters. But their adherence to duty and their bravery brought the enemy fighters down to sea level, leaving our Navy’s dive bombers who followed moments later with a clear path to destroy the enemy’s aircraft carriers and win a battle that was the turning point in the war. Significantly, neither of those examples were intellectual exercises, nor have intellectuals ever been credited with winning a battle, let alone a war.

Where Hanson claims Trump’s fight “clouded his legacy,” I argue it IS his legacy, win or lose, just as capitulation would be his legacy if he had chosen not to fight. Finally, those who would dismiss Trump’s achievements, as Hanson suggests, due to his fight to preserve the integrity of U.S. elections lack much more than common sense.

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David Tunno is a retired trial consultant and California refugee now living in Paulden, Arizona. More information about David Tunno is found at www.tunno.com.